New Mexico needs to close the loophole that SB40 left open. A technology called ELSAG SignalTrace is already being marketed to law enforcement agencies here — and it does far more than read license plates. When a car passes a camera, it sweeps every Bluetooth signal, Wi-Fi identifier, fitness tracker, smartwatch, and tire pressure sensor in range, building what the manufacturer calls an "electronic fingerprint" tied to a specific person. No warrant. No subpoena. No notice. The data goes straight to a private foreign-owned corporation.
SB40 was a real step forward, but it covers plate data only. SignalTrace's entire value proposition is that it doesn't need the plate — once it maps your devices, it tracks you even if you swap or remove it. That's not a gap in the law; that's a tunnel. The legislature needs to extend privacy protections explicitly to radio frequency and device-identifier collection, and county commissions should prohibit purchasing this equipment outright. A Texas officer already used plate reader access to track a woman who sought an abortion. This technology makes that kind of abuse trivially easy and nearly impossible to detect.
First sent on June 18 by States ask for townhalls
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